


the last of it

by ghoulgy



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: A prince and his knight, End of the World, Feudalism, Loyalty, M/M, OH YEAH changkyun animal psychic and literal god, genre typical character death, im trying to add a non serious tag but i cant think of one . anyway kkung princeisms: hes a prince, mentioned animal death (brief + nondescript)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-11-26 16:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18182780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgy/pseuds/ghoulgy
Summary: If he were a knight, if he were a good person, a soldier, he’d be out there, too. But something in him questions if any of this is righteous, if the crown may take and take and take and leave nothing behind.Anyway, Changkyun is here, in the castle, communing with wolves and letting birds pick his fruit apart. And where Changkyun is, Hoseok finds himself not far behind.





	the last of it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tltw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tltw/gifts).



> inspired by NFWMB by hozier 
> 
> FOR SET!!!! ilysm

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_

_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_

_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_

_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_

_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_

_Are full of passionate intensity._

[The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats]

 

 

In the light of the fire that ends the world, Hoseok thinks he sees Changkyun’s eyes staring straight back at him.

 

It’s the same heat Hoseok knows so well-- he’s felt it in the space between Changkyun’s fingers, in his voice late at night.

 

Is this it? Hoseok wonders, is this the piece he’d been missing all this time?

 

It’s all so reminiscent of their walks in the woods, the days when Changkyun would seem so at a loss for words that the air around him would crackle with frustration.

 

Is this what he couldn’t express?

 

Hoseok steps forward. Here, at the edge of the cliff they spent their childhood on the verge of toppling off, he sees Changkyun for the last time.

 

Letting the fire consume him is an easy thing.

 

The dying hurts. What comes after, not so much.

 

 

 

 

“He is so… small,” Hoseok whispers to his father, whose robe he treds on with every unsure footfall.

 

“You are small,” his father offers. He does not look down.

 

Hoseok pouts. They make their way to the prince’s chambers swiftly. Hoseok has a hard time ignoring the awed looks being sent their way.

 

The priest had called this arrangement _imperative._ Hoseok puffs his chest out as they walk, to look bigger, to make himself important. Ten is such a difficult age.

 

Hoseok’s father crouches down in front of him in front of a large, wooden door. Looks at Hoseok dead on for the first time in a while. His eyes don’t shift to the left or right. Hoseok feels seen, if only for a moment.

 

“I will see you often,” his father says firmly. “But we must not speak. Remember your manners. You are a knight and you must act like one.”

 

Hoseok does not have to ask what this entails. He was born for this, something like it.

 

He is too young to be handed around like a parcel, but that stops no one from using him as a means to and end.

 

It’s as if there are parts of him that remember being cradled while still feeble and newborn and realizing the weight of the world was upon his shoulders. His father was not pleased at how tiny he had been, not big enough to be a knight but too noble to be cast out upon the streets. So, they settled for something in between. To entrust something so monumental to the young, Hoseok thinks, is to pray for failure.

 

His father leaves then, and Hoseok does not cry. He doesn’t. If no one sees him do it, then it did not happen.

 

Hoseok tastes the salt on the seam of his lips, straightens his back and pushes his way through the wooden door.

 

When Hoseok meets Changkyun for the first time, the boy is playing with knives.

 

“Um,” he says, feeling much like he has interrupted something he had no business seeing.

 

“Oh, hello,” the prince intones, not once looking up from his bleeding fingers. “You’re my knight.”

 

Hoseok purses his lips. Does not comment on the knives, instead says, “yes, your highness,” and averts his eyes.

 

There’s a bowl of rotting fruit sitting on a table by the bed, the skin melting off each apple.

 

Changkyun balances glass atop a fingertip. “Well,” he starts, haltingly. “Aren’t you going to save me?”

 

Hoseok shifts. He should be used to feeling out of place, but even still. There’s something about the air in this room that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

 

“From what?” Hoseok deigns to ask.

 

“From myself. Clearly.”

 

Then, Changkyun laughs, loud and high in the roof of his mouth. Hoseok doesn’t know if he is allowed to laugh along, but he does anyway, quiet and reserved.

 

Finally, Changkyun turns to look at him, searches his face until they lock eyes and he smiles, still bloody and rugged. “I hope you’re fun.”

 

Hoseok shrugs. “I can be what you need me to be.”

 

Changkyun shakes his head, frowning. He’s far too small to look so stern. “No fun.”

 

“I am, too,” Hoseok protests, forgetting himself for just a moment. He takes a breath.

 

Changkyun doesn’t seem to mind. They’re too far apart in age and too young for titles and social boundaries to have set in too deeply. They feel so similar, Changkyun in his unkempt regalness, and Hoseok in his years and unrefined noble blood.

 

“Prove it,” Changkyun deadpans, moves to slide a smooth knife into Hoseok’s right hand. He backs up against the wall upon which one of many family portraits hangs. He reaches out, grasps a rotting piece of fruit and balances it atop his head, smiles wickedly. “Don’t kill me.”

 

The Changkyun in the portrait looks so much more proper than the boy who stands in front of him now. The dirt beneath his fingernails and the scratches that adorn his face don’t fit in with the image Hoseok has had of this boy for most of his life.

 

The light of the sun filters in through the open windows, pours over the two of them, warms the air.

 

A miracle, they called him.

 

Here, now, Hoseok sees what they meant.

 

Hoseok lets loose the knife, strikes the space between the other Changkyun’s teeth, tears a hole in the canvas, watches the real Changkyun topple to the floor in giggles.

 

Watches the rotten fruit fester.  

 

 

 

Hoseok’s loyalties are designed to be divided. The state and then, after, Changkyun.

 

Hoseok switches the two around in his head daily, hourly.

 

“Before all else,” the bigger knight, Olberic, starts, pushing Hoseok backwards with one quick shove, “protect him.”

 

Hoseok nods, steels himself, rushes forward-- a fruitless attempt to slip through Olberic’s guard and land one decent hit.

 

Hoseok’s older now, his sword heaver and armor no longer overlarge. Changkyun, too, is taller-- almost as tall as Hoseok himself is, but he’s so much frailer. The years have done nothing to change his preference for minimal physical activity.

 

Other things have changed.

 

Every time Hoseok rushes forward, Olberic knocks him back, hard.

 

The trees are losing their leaves.

 

“Understand that you are nothing,” Obleric hits him with the handle of his sword. He’s holding back.

 

Hoseok understands this more than he understands most things.

 

“He goes before you, always,” Olberic says. Hits him again to drive the point home.

 

Hoseok struggles to his feet.

 

He can see all of it. The way the world is dying around them, slowly.

 

The way he lunges at Olberic, steps back to avoid his blade, the way he brings his own sword up to Olberic’s neck. For the first time. Not nearly the last.

 

“For him,” Hoseok says, emphasizes by pulling his sword back and standing back straight.

 

Proud.

 

The ground is full of holes.

 

 

 

 

Hoseok finds Changkyun wrestling a wolf, one year. Both of them covered in blood and dirt, both of them wild and untamed.

 

And Hoseok would stop it, he would, if he were not so sure that this was part of the fun.

 

Changkyun communes with wolves. This is, somehow, not the weirdest thing about him.

 

 

 

 

They barrel through the woods, full speed ahead, like children still figuring out how their limbs work.

 

Changkyun’s old enough to have ascended to the throne. And he would have, had he been the King’s flesh and blood.

 

Changkyun’s not-brother admonishes his behavior daily. _Princes don’t play in the dirt_ , Hyunwoo sighs, _at least learn to ride a horse._

 

He hadn’t. And they still play in the forest.

 

Having no responsibilities makes Changkyun wild. They claw their way through bush after bush, breaking branches and vines as they go. The collaterals have very little bearing on their lives. Changkyun’s not a real prince anyway, and Hoseok, not a real knight.

 

“Are we friends?” Changkyun asks.

 

They’re laying in the grass, staring up at the sun. Changkyun handles his knives gracefully, spins one atop a finger, presses another firm to his own chest.

 

Hoseok hums. Thinks. “Yes,” he says. “I think so.”

 

Changkyun snorts. “He thinks.”

 

“I do!”

 

“What does that mean even? Friends.”

 

Hoseok turns to lay on one side. Furrows his brow.

 

“Would you be here if it were not your duty?” Changkyun mumbles, almost. His shame snakes its way up through his torso and out his mouth; virulent, palpable.

 

 _Yes,_ Hoseok wants to say. _Duty brought me to you but it is not what keeps me._

 

Instead he says, “it is one in the same.”

 

Changkyun sighs and Hoseok can hear the ghost of a _no fun_ in the air that surrounds him. “I think I am dangerous.”

 

Hoseok feigns ignorance. “You? Dangerous?”

 

Changkyun hits him, once, without force. “I can do things.”

 

Hoseok hums again, this time as he sits up and glances down to see what Changkyun looks like; flushed and tousled in the sun.

 

“Can you?” Hoseok asks. “Prove it.”

 

Changkyun sits up too. They’re shoulder to shoulder now. The wind makes its way through the dead trees; fells a trunk or two, blows through Changkyun’s hair.

 

He proves it. Easy. But Hoseok never doubted him at all. Not for a second.

 

 

 

The cliffs overlook the sea on the west end of the castle. It is easy to believe the world is endless from here, that the ocean is ceaseless and churning eternally, that what they yearn for lies just out of their reach.

 

Changkyun pulls Hoseok to the end of their world after a fight with the king. 

 

Hoseok should not have been listening, but he was, and he hears the voice of Changkyun's father even now.  _Freak. Blasphemer. Demon._

 

Changkyun's hand is firm on Hoseok's wrist, but Hoseok has grown stronger, and Changkyun is still too weak to hold anything but the suggestion of power.

 

What Hoseok does not expect is the way Changkyun twists his arm, brings him to his knees at the edge of the cliff, his feet dangling over the edge and his knees his only connection to solid ground. 

 

Funny, he thought he would be scared. But looking up at Changkyun, now, he knows the prince does not intend to hurt him, even if he does not realize it himself. 

 

The wind that blows through Hoseok's hair chills him. He is not used to feeling so cold in Changkyun's presence.

 

"I could hurt you, if I wanted to," Changkyun says, his voice holding none of the conviction it was filled with before, in the castle.

 

Hoseok lets his eyes fall closed. "You could."

 

"I could throw you off."

 

"If that's what you want."

 

Is it foolish? Hoseok wonders, to trust someone so completely?

 

Changkyun does not throw him to the sea. 

 

"I do not know what I want," Changkyun says, and he's pulling Hoseok forward, falling to his knees. 

 

They're so close. Changkyun's teeth are so sharp.

 

 

Hoseok isn't quite sure what he wants, either. He does know that here, at the edge of the world, fear seems so impractical. 

 

Still, it is something he holds on to. Would that he were a better man. Being a knight is about discipline. Hoseok is weak in the face of temptation, so, he feels he belongs with the sea. 

 

Changkyun stares at him, as if Hoseok can give him the answers he cannot give himself. 

 

Hoseok closes his eyes. Prays,  _please._

 

 

 

The day the mountains crumble to the ground around them, Hoseok finds himself pressed up against the cold cobblestone of Changkyun’s bedroom wall.

 

Not even on the cliffs has he let himself want, but here, when Changkyun smiles at him like he’s a thing to be played with… Hoseok can’t really help it.

 

In the distance, Hoseok can hear gunfire, explosions.

 

If he were a knight, if he were a good person, a soldier, he’d be out there, too. But something in him questions if any of this is righteous, if the crown may take and take and take and leave nothing behind. Anyway, Changkyun is here, in the castle, communing with wolves and letting birds pick his fruit apart. And where Changkyun is, Hoseok finds himself not far behind.

 

“You know,” Changkyun starts, tracing a finger over the outside of Hoseok’s arm, “I thought you would stay scrawny forever.”

 

Hoseok peers at Changkyun suspiciously. They’re chest to chest now, and there’s really nowhere for Hoseok to go. He breathes in deeply, watches as Changkyun does the same.

 

“What use would I be if I had stayed the same?” Hoseok asks, and maybe he’s genuinely curious, maybe he wants an admittance that he is more than a mere tool.

 

Changkyun’s hand finds its way to Hoseok’s neck and it rests there, warm, steady. “Use is a stupid word. What use am I, really? I think you were brought to me for a reason, even if…”

 

As Changkyun trails off, his eyes come unfocused. He traces letters into the nape of Hoseok’s neck, sends shivers down Hoseok’s spine.

 

Hoseok has never felt this warm, not ever.

 

“Anyway. Not everyone was born to be useful,” Changkyun starts again, suddenly. “Me, I think I have found my purpose. But I do not want to keep you from yours, so…”

 

Hoseok furrows his brow. This is an admission of something, he just can’t quite put his finger on it. Changkyun is giving Hoseok a choice.

 

It’s an easy one to make, really.

 

“Your purpose is my purpose,” Hoseok says instead of _you are my purpose._

 

Some secrets are meant to be kept. Hoseok leaves his in the space between his teeth, in every breath that fans across Changkyun’s face.

 

Changkyun kisses him, then, because he’s been given permission. Not that he needed it. Not that he would ever need it.

 

Another bang comes from the forest. They’ve started the hunt, amidst all the fire and the ashes.

 

The world falls apart around them, and Hoseok knows that this part is not Changkyun’s fault. This is not the reckoning, this is the sin--what causes the rest of it.

 

Hoseok pulls back and it is then he sees the wet beneath Changkyun’s eyes.

 

“Are you okay?” Hoseok asks, reaching a hand up to cup Changkyun’s jaw.

 

“Yes, of course I am,” he answers gruffly,

 

“No, look,” Hoseok slides his thumb over Changkyun’s cheek, pulls back when he finds the tears, “You’re crying.”

 

“No, I…” Changkyun fumbles, pulls back. “I’m fine.”

 

In a split second, Changkyun’s eyes regain their fight. He smiles again and Hoseok mirrors him. “I refuse to let my father ruin this for me,” he declares.

 

Thunder rips across the sky, rattles Hoseok’s bones. He cannot find it in himself to be scared, not when Changkyun is here.

 

“Ruin what?” Hoseok asks, laugh escaping against his will.

 

When Changkyun kisses him this time, it is overwhelming. “You,” he says.”They will never ruin you.”

 

Hoseok did not know, before this, that it was possible to feel so many things at once.

 

 

 

Nothing changes. Hoseok is still a knight and Changkyun still a prince. They play dress up and pretend that the things they do really matter. 

 

Hoseok finds himself running out of ways to say  _I love you_. Which seems impossible. There must be more. 

 

 

 

Changkyun befriends the wolves in the summer, but they do not make it to the winter. And it is not his fault, the fire that kills them was not set by Death. Instead, when the king wants to light a pyre to celebrate his kingdom, he finds it much simpler, much easier, to burn the whole forest down instead.

 

 

 

 

Hoseok is called before the king in the winter.

 

Seeing the king means seeing his father, and seeing his father means being a disappointment.

 

Hoseok is so many things, now, but somehow, his father still makes him feel so small.

 

“Tell him off,” Changkyun advises, head hanging upside down off his bed in the midst of a thunderstorm. “That’s what I always do.”

 

Hoseok smiles, not unkindly. “I am certain I can think of easier ways to get myself killed.”

 

Changkyun is not with him when he enters the throne room, he is not there when Hoseok bows, stands back up straight.

 

The whole place tastes of ash.

 

“You have done well,” the king starts. Hoseok’s father stands at his side. He never once takes his eyes off the wall. “Keeping him out of trouble must have been hard.”

 

Hoseok nods, but he does not mean it.

 

“I have one last task for you.”

 

The words are odd, they snake around the room twice before settling atop Hoseok’s head-- they are dangerous things.

 

“I need you to kill him for me,” the king says, his palms turned upward in his lap. “For the kingdom.”

 

Outside, it hails. It has not stopped storming for weeks now, and it all seems to be coming to a head.

 

Hoseok nods. He does not mean it.

 

 

 

 

“I could kill him,” Hoseok whispers into Changkyun’s neck. “I would, for you.”

 

“No,” Changkyun says. “I’ll do it. But I will not stop with him.”

 

Changkyun thinks, and Hoseok agrees, that they must burn the whole forest down.

 

 

 

 

When the end comes, it is as much Changkyun’s doing as it is Hoseok’s.

 

Amidst the war and the hunger and the anger, two boys stand at the edge of a cliff, wind threatening to pull them off.

 

“I guess this is goodbye,” Hoseok says-- he can feel Changkyun beginning to come undone in front of him. “I am glad I could be someone to you.”

 

The ground beneath them blackens, Hoseok feels warm again.

 

“Someone,” Changkyun scoffs, his lips are fire. “Stupid, you’re my knight.”

 

For the first time, Hoseok feels like one.

 

Changkyun ends the world with Hoseok’s hand wrapped firmly around his wrist. This was always his decision to make.

 

It is the dying that hurts. What comes after, what came before, not so much.

**Author's Note:**

> u: what in the hale was this  
> me: damb.... who knows
> 
> rattles comments machine ..... spare comments ? spare comments anyone?
> 
> twt: 5_14pm


End file.
